Without thinking, Diego bought the entire basket, paid triple, and handed her an extra bill she tried to refuse.
“No, sir, it’s too much…”
“It’s not,” he said. “If you or your mother need anything… anything at all… call me.”
He gave her his card with a direct number. She took it as if it were fragile.
Diego remained standing in the rain, watching her walk away barefoot. He wanted to shout a thousand questions, to pull the ring from her hand to confirm the engraving, to run after her and say, “I’m your father”… but he didn’t. He stood there with his heart trembling.
Diego did not follow her.
But the ring did.
Part 2: The Truth That Had Been Hidden for Sixteen Years
That night, in his apartment in Polanco, with the city lights glowing beyond the glass, Diego could not sleep. He took out Ximena’s yellowed letter, folded so many times it seemed ready to tear.
“My Diego… forgive me for not telling you face to face. If I look into your eyes, I won’t leave. I have to go to keep you alive. My brother Damián got involved with dangerous people… I’m three months pregnant. Don’t look for me. Please…”
For years he hired investigators, chased false leads, changed names. He never married, never loved again without feeling he was betraying a ghost.
And now, a girl wearing Ximena’s ring had appeared selling bread in the rain.
The next day, Diego called a discreet man—one of those who don’t ask questions.
“Find Cecilia. Carefully. Don’t scare her. She must not know anything.”
Three days passed like three months. The report came: Cecilia lived on the outskirts of San Miguel with her mother. Her mother cleaned houses, was ill, and the registered last name: Salazar. There was a photo. Cecilia smiling, with Ximena’s identical features.
Diego did not wait.
He arrived at their small house one cloudy afternoon. Dirt road, puddles, chickens pecking among old cans—but also flowers: bougainvillea climbing the gate, white roses in improvised pots.
He knocked.
“You… the bread man,” Cecilia whispered.
“Yes. I need to speak with your mother.”
Ximena appeared, thinner, face marked, eyes sunken. Their gazes collided, and the world vanished again.
“Diego…” she whispered.
“Why didn’t you ever come back?” His voice broke.
She told him everything: fear, danger, cancer.
Diego fell to his knees before her, holding her cold hands.
“You had no right! I’ve been dead inside for sixteen years… and she… she is our daughter.”